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Licensing Focus – Lower Edition Rights

You may be aware that Microsoft does not support the use of lower edition software – a common example – would be the use of Office Standard 2010 when the Enterprise Agreement has Office Professional Plus as a component. Microsoft does not accept downgrade as it is considered a different product.

The alternative approach, instead of deploying Office Standard Edition is to look at deploying the relevant components you want within the Office Professional Plus image and leverage the higher functionality of Rights Management and SharePoint integration.

The exception however are as below, with reference to Windows Server and SQL Server

According to the PUR, the following licenses include lower edition / ‘Down Edition’ use rights:

SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise (Server/CAL, Processor License) “You may run on the licensed server an instance of Standard in place of Enterprise in any of these operating system environments.”

SQL Server 2008 R2 Datacenter “You may run on the licensed server instances of Enterprise or Standard in place of Datacenter in any of the operating system environments.”

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise “You may run on the licensed server an instance of Standard in place of Enterprise in any of the operating system environments.”

Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter “You may run on the licensed server an instance of Standard or Enterprise in place of Datacenter in any of the operating system environments.”